Not to Forget
by HecateA
Summary: Seventy years later, it's Annabeth's turn. Oneshot.


**Hi! This is another story writen for the PERCY JACKSON SHIP WEEK! **

august 6 august 13: Grover and Juniper. (Check)

august 13 august 20: Clarisse and Chris. (Check)

august 20 august 27: Silena and Charles. (Check)

september 3 september 10: Thalia and Luke. (Check)

september 10 september 17: Hazel and Frank. (Check, Check)

september 17 september 24: Piper and Jason / Reyna and Jason (Check, Check)

september 24 october 1: Percy and Annabeth.

**So here is your rightfully deserved Percabeth fluff.**

**Disclaimer: Me no own.**

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**Percy Jackson Ship Weeks #7 Percy and Annabeth**

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**Couldn't make me Forget You **

She'd seen pictures of her grandmother when she was young, and there were days when Meg didn't recognise a dang thing, and other days where the girl in the photograph and the Grandmamma Meg knew and loved were the same person. Frail, skeletal and sick as the old woman was, there was life to her. Her hair was long and white like a snowfall and it fell in gentle curls. She wore a sweater and jeans making her one of the coolest elders in the home. Her grey eyes were clouded with cataracts but the light shone through them.

"Knock, knock," Meg said knocking on the open door of the nursing home room.

Grandmamma looked up from a magazine she was reading, Meg was ready to bet it was National Geographic, and smiled widely.

"Hello," she said. Her smile looked uncomfortable and so Meg knew what kind of day it was.

Grandmamma was very conscience about the fact that Alzheimer wasn't causing the world to go insane, but causing her mind to forget and morph.

"Hi Grandmamma," Meg said halting in the door before barging in. "I'm Meg Jackson. I'm Percy's granddaughter."

This was the fail proof trick.

"Meg," she said tapping her forehead. "How could I have forgotten? I only have one beautiful granddaughter, look at you," she said opening her arms. Meg smiled and walked up to her grandmother, arms opened for a hug. Grandmamma stretched off her mountain of pillows, which probably took a colossal effort.

"Look at you, you look great Grandmamma," Meg said.

"No, no. I'm skin and bones." She said dismissively. "You, on the other hand… you look so much older from the picture I have. Remind your parents to send me another picture."

"I'll tell my dad," Meg promised. "I'm Darius' daughter."

"Of course," Annabeth said. "Grey eyes," she said cupping Meg's cheek with her hand, her thumb at the corner of Meg's eye. Her hand was shaking, so Meg put her hand on top and guided it down.

Darius was the only one of Grandmamma's children with grey eyes. Uncle Alexander's eyes were green, and Aunt Megara had ended up with blue eyes without anybody being sure how or why. Many jokes about that had been apparently made at Christmas parties.

"So how are you doing, my dear? How is the track?" Grandmamma said. "Here, I'll scoot."

Meg got to sit down on the bed next to her.

"Toby's the one who does track," Meg said. "I box."

"Of course," Grandmamma said. "And the scholarship- how do you like school?"

Meg got to rant about school for a while, but promised Grandmamma that she really did enjoy NYU and that her program on international religion was interesting.

"Plus I get to come and visit by Grandmamma," she said smiling and putting an arm around her.

"Nonsense, you'd do fine without me," Grandmamma said, but the smile on her lip told Meg that she was happy too. Maybe that wasn't because of Meg particularly; maybe just because there was someone. She'd insisted on living in New York after selling the apartment, even if her kids were in New Rome, and everyone wondered if it was starting to wear her down. "How are the twins doing? Still getting into trouble?"

She was talking about Meg's dad and Uncle Alexander.

"They are still getting into trouble. The other night Mom said that she'd have to tie them to their chairs if they didn't stop shoving."

"You remind Darius of how I raised him," Annabeth said with a laugh. "And if you don't do it, I'll go down to New Rome myself." The twinkle in her eyes obviously said _good, now don't change my boys. _

"Where does he work again?"

Meg spent the hour talking and explaining the family life and what everyone was doing and reminding Grandmamma that she was Meg the granddaughter and Alexander and Darius were her sons and so forth, and she took out a picture album to try (and fail) to jog Grandmamma's memory.

Some people hated that about Alzheimer's, having to repeat everything and every detail and every story. But Meg didn't mind. Grandmamma had told her so many stories growing up; it felt like Meg was simply filling a debt of tales and plots.

Plus there were always those priceless times that reminded Meg that her grandmother had _spunk. _

"How's your brother doing? Oh, his name…"

"Toby," Meg filled in.

"That's it, how's Tobias doing?"

"It's just Toby, Grandmamma."

"Yes I know, your father wouldn't listen to me."

Meg snorted.

"When is your brother coming over to New York?" She asked pointing at a picture of her cousin Chase.

"He might not go to NYU," Meg said. "But he'll end up going to university in four years."

"Well I'll be gone by then," Grandmamma said.

"Nah, don't say that." Meg said squeezing Grandmamma's hand.

"I should've been gone a long time ago," Grandmamma said. There was a sadness to that statement.

She was the oldest demigod alive, and she wasn't even in New Rome. Nobody knew how, but Annabeth Chase, leader of Camp Half-Blood, daughter of Athena, architect of Olympus, and prophecy child was still alive and reading National Geographic and sketching out flimsy-drawn buildings at the whopping age of eighty seven.

"You know about half-bloods, don't you darling?"

Meg nodded obediently.

"Well we don't live long, but I did and we don't know how."

Grandmamma asked about the seven, and Meg had to repeat that they were dead because of this and that. That made Grandmamma sad, but she started story-telling about them again once she found the picture. Meg settled in.

Often she'd blank out in the middle of a story, but Meg remembered enough from her childhood to fill in the blanks.

She took out her homework and answered questions about Pagan religions as Grandmamma told her stories, struggled to remember Hazel's name, Frank's cultural heritage or the way Piper wore her hair, and pointed out Meg's grammatical errors.

Sometimes it hurt to have to remind Grandmamma of these details- that Frank had gotten caught in a landmine explosion, the Dare family name had landed Rachel in a drive-by shooting Apollo hadn't been able to save her from, Reyna had been gang ambushed by monsters… Even the happy details were fuzzy, like Hazel's slang from the forties, Grover's enchilada passion, and Frank's constant attempts to get to the Argo II's stash of ice cream despite being lactose intolerant... these stories had been around for Meg's bedtimes and sick days for as long as she could remember.

But nothing would hurt as much as the last time; when Grandmamma had forgotten who her mother was.

Anyways, this time she was willing to talk and interact, and she looked through the picture book and told Meg when each shot in it had been taken. Well, correction, she told Meg when each shot that had to do with one particular subject had been taken.

She remembered sneaking off on quests and it gave a rebellious light to her eyes, the common routine for fireworks, Percy and Jason's rivalries, she remembered blue food, she remembered Camp's layout and water bodies, the inside of Cabin 3, the colour of the sea… anything to do with Grandpa, really.

Meg had never met him. He'd died a few months after the Meg she was named after, Megara, was born.

But Meg knew who that man was from the stories and the anecdotes. If there was a story with Meg's grandfather in it, Grandmamma had it by heart on the first try and, judging by her face, in her heart as well.

She looked up to Grandmamma as she finished a paragraph explaining why myths were distorted.

"Grandmamma, can I ask you a question?" Meg asked.

"Hellenic has two 'l's in it," she said.

"That wasn't it," Meg said. She looked down at Daedalus' laptop and realised that she'd been spelling it wrong for the whole first seven pages of her typed essay and _that's why it's underlined in red. _"But I was just wondering… with the Alzheimer and everything… Why haven't you forgotten Grandpa?"

Her grandmother turned her head and looked out the window of her nursing home room. And it was one of those times when she looked very, very old.

"You remember the story of the giant war, don't you?" Grandmamma said.

"I hear it all the time." Meg said. Between camp, her grandmother, New Rome… it was everywhere. The monuments were standing as the veterans were dying out.

"Jason forgot everything," Grandmamma said. "Percy forgot everything about home and himself. But he didn't forget about me. Not even once. And so now it's my turn not to forget about him."

And when Grandmamma turned back to smile at Meg, the light in her eyes and the soft automatic smile on her lips made her lookvery, very beautiful; and very, very happy and very, very young.


End file.
